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Channel 4oD: Misfits (2010) Episode 3

SYNOPSIS: "'Misfits' follows five outsiders on community service who get struck by a flash storm and lumbered with special powers. The masked man saves Alisha (Antonia Thomas) from a mugging on the estate - it appears he is able to touch her without being affected by her powers and Alisha is intrigued." (channel4.com)

This is more like it. Much more waiting around and a lovely homosocial encounter between Nathan (Robert Sheehan) and Simon (Iwan Rheon) which turns out to have been orchestrated by a malevolent tattoo artist. There's a showdown with said figure which is based on a a packet of peanuts thrown to the gang by the mysterious motorcycle courier who irritated me last week – this a rubbishy scene to be honest, too much like the 'Skins' style of ludicrous encounter with the adult world (arm wrestling with Mackenzie Crook etc) for the sort of show I want 'Misfits' to be.
The rest is more or less wonderful. Nathan and Kelly (Lauren Socha) finally kiss – and it does nothing for her at just about the same point that he's clearly completely fallen in love. Hooded courier is revealed and intrigues with Alisha who gets to go one better than everyone else by having a lover who is a) older and b) from the future.

That's when I like this show most, when the emotional and hokey high-concept collide - it makes a lot of sense that Alisha might go for an older and more worldly guy. Having him be from the future just amplifies what it feels like she would do anyway– the first time she's seemed happy since the series started. Her sudden questions to the most unexpected member of the group (can you see how I'm straining not to give the whole plot away here?) about whether he ever thinks about the future are right for the plot but feel emotionally right as well.

What else? Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) visits the woman he thinks he's meant to be with, and brings her some pajamas. And we get the sense, for the first time really, that this series is counting down to something. Watching the episode I wrote down lots of the lines, thinking they were extremely quotable - reading them back out of context they make less sense. But I still like Kelly's response to tattoo-addled, Simon-loving, Nathan's question "why do we have to put labels on everything?"; "because we do alright, or no one knows what the fuck is going on."

'Misfits' is on E4 at 10pm on Thursdays. Each episode is available to watch for free on 4od for a month for UK users. The first series is also available in its entirety.